One of the Guys
by Fasnacht
Summary: Sam is forever one of the guys. She likes it that way fine. People stay out of her business, and she gets along well with everyone. That doesn't mean, however, that she is any less of a girl, even in stereotypical ways. She thinks football sucks, and that engines are confusing. She's authentically herself. What happens, then, when someone comes along who challenges the status quo?


**Warnings: Quinn has a penchant for cursing a blue streak. Well, so does everyone else. I don't like working on tractors, and it shows. And everyone is all really, really, clueless because they don't talk.**

The banging on her door was about all she could take. Sam shuffled to the door, her runny nose and stuffy head making the banging all the worse. She flung open the door, "What?"

"You didn't check the peephole." The man at the door didn't even bother to hide the censure in his voice.

"What are you going to do, arrest me?" Sam shot back. She really did not have time for this. Her life was in the toilet. She wouldn't even have a toilet for her life to be in in six weeks, as her lease was up, and with no job, she couldn't even afford her crappy apartment. She would need to pick up more pieces with the blog group she was paid to work with if she intended to eat something more than ramen next month.

Sam shrugged, "It'll be three hots and a cot."

Jake didn't sit down, and Sam could see him taking in the visible elements of her bone deep-tiredness. The blanket thrown over the couch did not hide the soda rings on her secondhand coffee table. The blanket had covered them, but once he folded it, it did it hide the fact that Cougar had stolen a cracker from the package on the floor. The day after she had lost her job, Sam had woken up with a head cold. The stress of trying to prove herself worthy of her job had finally caught up her to her. The stress of meeting deadline after deadline hid her fear of failing. "You're sick."

"Oh, great powers of deduction there." Sam picked up her cat, and yanked away the cracker as he yowled in protest. Sam let him down before he took a chunk out of her arm.

Sam floundered. The second to last time she had seen Jake, her best friend, he had been crawling out of her bed, a classic coyote ugly move, because he was almost late for work again. Sam had pretended to be asleep because she hadn't wanted him to leave yet. They had really needed to stop having tipsy sex, and angry sex, and stupid, bored, sex, and there's nothing on TV sex and you're my best friend and I want to cuddle sex. She had loved every bit of it.

That was, until she'd caught the look on his face that morning. It had been...sad, regretful. Sam tried to think dispassionately about the feelings that had rushed through her in that moment. She had cried in the shower, pulled herself together, and put their friendship first, called him a day or so later, and met him for coffee.

After a conversation in that coffee shop, they were friends again. Friends, only. Friends without the benefit of being together. It was a meaningless part of their relationship anyway. Sam tried to make it so, even as she knew she could never really do it. "Can you get packed up?"

Sam spluttered, "What?" The only thing she wanted to pack up was all the food rotting in her fridge. He could take it with him, back from whence he came. She wanted to sleep, and he had ruined her plans in folding up her germy blanket, snapping away the warmth in the fibers. "Don't you have speeding tickets to dish out?"

Jake didn't respond to the ire in her voice. Sam knew it was serious. He hadn't shown up here in two weeks. But now, he was back, and he wasn't happy. Sam hadn't expected their post-no sex meeting to be like this. "Sam. Grandfather called a family meeting."

"Shit." Sam said, sitting down as a wave of dizziness overtook her. She put her head between her knees, bunching up her nightgown. "What is it this time? I mean, what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything." Jake replied. How were they to know? Grandfather had called these meetings ever since all seven of them had scattered to the four winds. "What did you do?"

Sam did not have time for the blame game. It must be something else. This was not a problem and resolution meeting, not like the time Quinn and Brian had fought something terrible for two weeks of a stupid saddle. Nobody knew that their relationship had shifted, because not a soul on the planet knew they had been messing around for nearly seven years, and nothing seemed amiss with anyone else. Maybe they knew, Sam thought, but if they did, they didn't talk about it. Dad had, once, of course. That was different, though. He wasn't her brother.

Sam resisted the urge to send out a group text.

"I am 24 years old. I am not at all nervous." She breathed. But she was nervous. A family meeting, called out of the blue, was some serious stuff.

Sam felt the dizziness pass, and she looked up. Jake was trying to be reassuring, his gaze open and measured. This was just a togetherness meeting. She liked those. It was an odd time to call one, but whatever. Maybe somebody was homesick, or maybe Grandfather missed them, or had good gossip from a meeting with the Chairman and his various committees.

"You look like hell." Jake looked concerned. He looked carefully at the bottle of Pepto on the side table. He picked it up like it was evidence in some crime and frowned at the ring on the side table, "Have you been swigging this?"

Sam went into her bedroom, rolling her eyes. She was fine. She pulled out a bag and started throwing things in for a weekend at home. While she was there, she planned to figure her life out, and at least try to look for a new job now that the magazine had folded. She could sit on the computer for a few hours, and send out another five applications a day, or something.

Sam heard Jake packing up the cat and putting dishes in the sink. She lived on canned soup, and her apartment needed a good cleaning. "No one would ever call you a homemaker."

"I have no aspirations of being one." Sam repeated herself as she had all her life. It was something of a lie. She wasn't a homemaker because she had no one beside herself to make a home for, in all honesty. Some days, when she was sick and tired of having a crappy boss and a crappy assignment, she just wanted to do her own thing, bake bread and commune with the earth. Sam was really only working away from home to prove a point. She missed the ranch, and was home most evenings and weekends. An hour's drive was too long.

Sam realized that she was running away from her problems. Her joblessness, her poverty, her illness, the nagging knot of awfulness in her gut. She could leave it all behind. Renewed, Sam went into the bathroom and gathered up her toiletries, and turned away quickly.

"Sam!" Jake called, "We're going to the truck." Sam heard him chuckle, and she hated him for it.

That rat bastard. She raced out of the apartment as soon as she could. If only she had beaten him to the door, they could have taken her truck, and not that old IH he loved so much. The only thing Sam had ever liked about that thing was the roomy back seat. It was always needing to be repaired, always jolting, always finding potholes.

Sam let the door latch behind her. There was no going back now, well, at least for the weekend.

* * *

><p>Jake turned into Deerpath less than 65 minutes later. Sam counted her blessings. They had fought the whole way about music. He wanted this station, she wanted that artist. She was annoying. He was an ass. She was ignoring her health. He was sticking his nose where it didn't belong. The whole argument was par for the course.<p>

Sam felt a million times better. It was amazing what a pointless argument that didn't really mean anything could do for a girl's spirits and her pounding headache. Sam hopped down. "I told you you should have gone around that van."

"You got here in one piece, didn't you?" They had a shorter drive than Seth, and there he was, along with Bryan, Adam, Nate, and Quinn on the porch.

Sam shut her door. Jake was beyond annoying. Sam had never been so glad of anything in her whole life. This not having sex thing wasn't ruining the foundation of their relationship. "I would have gotten us here first."

Nate replied, as they had been easily heard as they approached the porch. Sam grinned as she went up the steps, "You and your lead foot, you mean."

Sam did not hesitate, "It was you." Sam narrowed her eyes at Nate. He was making small talk. It was a huge tell, honed by years of these meetings. "What did you do?"

Nate looked annoyed. "Me? I had to break off a date, Sam, to be here. I have no idea why we're being called to the carpet."

"Yeah, so?" Sam said, sitting down on the swing, "We all had plans." She kicked her foot out and made the swing move, so that Seth had to scoot away from the side of the swing. He was tapping away on his Blackberry. If not for them, this swing would be so peaceful.

Voices started to meld as everyone began to talk to their own ends. It was a glorious sound that made Sam's head spin. Quinn was saying something to Nate, and Seth was saying something to Bryan, and Quinn was telling them all to listen to him, and Adam was sitting back and silently laughing at them all.

Jake sat down, and she sandwiched herself between Quinn and Jake. She put her head on Jake's shoulder, and closed her eyes. She was so tired. His arm wrapped around her, and Sam almost drifted off. Almost, being the key word. After a long moment, Grandfather opened the screen door and said, "Why don't you come inside?"

He acted like he didn't know they all met out here to construct a timeline and such, if one were needed, like the time she and Jake and Bryan had all gone on vacation to the beach, and gotten fantastically drunk by accident, and ended up charging up a bunch of money because she'd made the rookie mistake of not watching their tab. It was not one of her finest moments. The fact that Nate had spent money on liquor for women still made her laugh.

She had mucked and slaved for months to pay Dad back that money. Deerpath was cozy and cool, like a desert oasis, as she looked at Grandfather who was wheeling in his tea cart. There were milk and cookies on the tray. Martha, the housekeeper, must have known to expect them.

This discussion had been planned, then. She glanced at Bryan, who was sitting on the footstool. "When we get home, I am sleeping for a decade."

"I will come to my point, then." Grandfather said, passing out the milk. Where was the customary coffee or tea? Sam sipped the cold, cold, milk, and stole a cookie from the plate that Jake was holding. Peanut butter. Glorious. Even her ill tastebuds knew that this cookie was a gift from God Himself.

"No rush." Seth said, obviously making up for her bad manners. When Grandfather wasn't looking, Sam rolled her eyes at Seth, who grinned back at her.

The silence loomed for a long moment. Nobody was even eating. Sam almost dropped her cookie. Grandfather was looking at them. After a long moment, he said, "I'm retiring."

Nobody spoke. They all looked at each other in confusion. How, exactly, did one retire from living their life? It seemed then that everybody was talking, asking the same questions in different words. Noise swelled. Jake took the milk from her hand before it spilled all over the rug.

Grandfather shot them a look, and their mouths closed. Sam hoped that one day, she would be as lovable, as kind, and as scary as Grandfather. "To answer your questions: Yes, your parents know, and your father is complete agreement with my solution. No, we're not selling Deerpath; No, I'm not sick, or insane, thank you. Yes, we do need to talk about this. However, no discussion is going to take place while you're all leaping to conclusions and wailing."

Sam shared a look with Jake. He was ill at ease, and had no answer for the questions in her eyes. Sam wondered where all of this was coming from. There was such a heaviness in the room, and she didn't know what to make out of all of this. Deerpath was their refuge, their childhood play place. How could Grandfather just leave? How could he change their world so radically? Sam was utterly bewildered.

Sam understood, now, the significance of the cookies and milk. They were meant to be soothing, grounding, comforting. They were a symbol. Sam wanted to toss them in the bin and throw up.

"I've decided to go away for a time." Grandfather informed them, dipping his cookie easily.

Sam watched the cookie soften in the milk, its structure weakening like her very childhood before her eyes.

Adam ventured, "Couldn't you just go away for the weekend? We'll all pitch in, and you could come home, and..."

Grandfather shook his head, "I'm going to spend some time traveling. This is not a trip to the Grand Canyon." Grandfather looked squarely at them, "However, the ranch must be considered."

"How can we help you?" Bryan tried to be a voice of reason, "What can we do?" What could any of them possibly do?

Grandfather came to the crux of the matter with no further explanation, "I need someone to run the place while I'm gone."

"We can help you find someone." Seth said, looking hopefully at his siblings. There were always people looking for work. It wasn't right to have the place out of the family, but there was no other choice. Surely, Grandfather would be back very soon. No one would ever walk away from all of this.

"I'd like for one of you to take on the role." Grandfather asserted, "And I would like you to decide as a group who it will be, as well as who is going to do what to help that person, so that everything is set up."

Sam paled. Everyone looked as stunned as she felt. Deerpath was huge. It wasn't a summer cottage or a condo with a houseplant or two to mind. There were employees and others to consider, crops, animals, and permits to manage. There was just no way anyone could do this without decades of experience.

Adam shook his head, "I'd love to help, but I can't be in charge." He quickly outlined his reasons why. He had his work at the store to consider, his backpacking gigs, whatever. Sam wondered if he was thinking about his girlfriend, her of the wide smile and no visits home. Adam said she didn't understand what it was like to have a casual relationship, or to want to keep some things private. Yeah, right.

Sam put her hopes on each one of her brothers. They were all equally suited to doing what needed to be done. They could manage these thousands of acres. They had been trained to know that they might end up doing this full time. Their entire family depended on the welfare of all three ranches as they worked in concert with the others. One by one, everyone else admitted that they too, had lives and jobs to consider.

Jake was last. He said, "I can help, but..." Sam knew that with his hours, he could not be here at the needed times to oversee the workers, to oversee projects, and do the things that needed to be done. It wasn't fair to ask this of any of them. It wasn't fair! How could Grandfather want to go anywhere else?

Quinn said, "What about Sammy?"

There was a chorus of hopeful responses. Sam didn't know if they were kidding or not. They likely wanted her to decline so they could convince Grandfather to stay. Sam opened her mouth to say just what Jake had said, but her mouth didn't form those words.

Sam didn't know where the words came from. "I...I..." She swallowed, "I'll do it."

The room went still. "What about your work?" Someone said, she wasn't sure who it was, in all honesty. She only knew that she felt the eyes of the whole universe upon her. Had she just committed herself to this? She had. For she had nothing else. She had always assumed that her childhood would be here to come back to, and well, she would not let Deerpath languish.

She would take up the reins, knowing that she was not ready for this, that this was wrong, if only to hold back the tide. Grandfather would return in a week or two, and all would be well.

Sam grinned, trying to find humor in something that had nearly crushed her. "Welcome to the digital age. Magazines fold, and reporters are let go. I was the newest hire, and the first to be let go. I have a freelance gig in Portland in a few weeks, but other than that..."

"And this didn't come up in conversation, why?" Jake interjected, "How long?"

"Few weeks." Sam shrugged, "I knew I'd find something." She had tried, tried so hard. She'd sent her resume everywhere she could think of, even going so far as to cold email and cold call places. She had applied for every job that came her way. With her master's degree, most people said she was too qualified. Without years of experience, she was not qualified for jobs that expected a master's degree. It was a horrible bind. She had her pride, though. Her pride had to be set aside.

Grandfather looked at her, "And now you have." His quiet acceptance sliced through the room. Everyone was looking at her. She had no clue how she could do this. Grandfather expected that she could, and would, manage. There was no other option. She didn't know enough.

Sam nodded, her head spinning. She looked at Jake, and then around the study. What the hell had she just gotten herself into?

* * *

><p>Thank God in His Heaven for the smallest and greatest of his mercies. She did not have to learn to cook. Martha was going to continue to work. The hands would be informed before Grandfather left for Ireland in two weeks. The contacts would have to be informed so that people knew that she spoke for Deerpath. She. Spoke. For. Deerpath. Why her? Why not Luke? Why hadn't Kit come home? Why hadn't Nate or Adam or Seth or somebody said something? Why hadn't someone been honest and said that she wasn't ready?<p>

Jake interjected her mutterings about things to do, "At least you don't have to give your job notice." There was no kindness in his tone. He was annoyed, angry.

"Would you shut up?" Sam shot back. Her head was pounding, and she hated to think that he did not support this venture. It was temporary, but she needed his support in this. "I have to go back, and pack up the apartment after I go to Portland."

"Be sure to kiss the criminal goodbye." Jake reminded her caustically.

Sam was outraged. Harry was a former co-worker who lived near her. They were friends who enjoyed working together. No matter what Jake asserted, he was a decent guy. So he was a little wild, and liked his life on the wild side, so what? Everyone got their kicks in different ways.

"He went to traffic court once!" Sam almost yelled, slamming the notebook down on the coffee table. "You had more run-ins with the cops during high school in one week than Harry ever has."

Jake pushed himself to his feet. As a law enforcement officer, he was sensitive about his wild and wooly days, running after her as she ran after mustangs. "And whose fault was that?"

"Not mine, I assure you!" Sam shot back. She was intensely aware that, two weeks ago, they would be expressing these sentiments, whatever they were, in another way. Sam wanted that, wanted to calm the fire in her blood by burning through it like rocket fuel.

No. She wasn't going to ruin the progress they'd made today. Eight years was a good run. They'd gotten it out of their system. They were going to be adults, now, and build adult lives that didn't include things like _Justified _marathons and laughing, slow, teasing sex.

Sam took a step back, and Jake decoded that gesture for what it was. Some look came over his face, and he let out a ragged breath. The silence was heavy between them for a long moment.

Jake rubbed the back of his neck. "I just think that you are giving up on your dreams, Sam. You wanted to write, not be at home, else you would have never insisted on leaving."

She had not insisted on leaving. She lived an hour away. He stuffed his face at her table at least four nights a week, even though her cooking wasn't the greatest. And the other nights, she was at home, so she didn't see what the big hairy deal had been for ages. He acted like, if there was so much as a flake of snow on the ground, that she had to be checked up on and reminded to put ashes down.

"I never left. I _moved _out of my father's house." Sam repeated, adding, "And I lost my job. There is a big difference. I can still blog."

Jake looked dubious, as though he was trying to break something to her quite gently. "Blogs aren't really writing."

"Excuse me?" Sam cried, not liking the hot blush that stole over his face. "1999 called. They went their rhetoric back." She busted her behind at that blog, she networked, she did all the things she was supposed to do. She had nothing left, and he wanted to knock her blog, too. Whatever, but she wasn't going to allow him to be an ignorant luddite.

Jake bit out, hissing through his teeth. "_Jesus_. Do you have to take everything I say and push it to the extreme?"

Sam wasn't about to let this go. She knew what he was saying. Anyone could blog, and she was a professional. He didn't want her to sell-out or give up. "He's not going to help you, you stubborn..."

Sam knew she was pushing buttons, pushing so many that she was lighting up buttons like an elevator board.

"All I am saying, Sam, is that you didn't think about things. Just like you never think..." Jake tried to speak but Sam cut him off.

"Oh, I never think! I never think." She laughed bitterly, "Who helped you study for the damn GRE? Who proofreads every stupid thing you post on your stupid website? You can't even spell. Let me help you: Your word of the day is F-..."

"I'm not listening to that. If you're going to curse at me, it means you haven't got anything to say." Jake was imperious. He didn't like having his authority challenged, which was just too darn bad.

No, it meant that he wasn't willing to listen. If he was going to police her way of saying what needed to be said, that meant he wasn't invested in actually listening. "No, you don't want to hear anything. Whatever. I'm done." Sam said, "I'm done."

"What done are we talking about here, Sam?" Jake asked, coldly. His arms were crossed in front of him. "Or should we wait while I go buy some coffee?"

Sam was furious that he was bringing up the decision they had made together. They just couldn't make it work. There was more to life than making something work. There was more than a relationship than loving the person you were with. Love, obviously, was a beautiful force, but it could not sustain them. Any anyway, they were the poster people for friends with benefits. That's what they had been. It had been enough. Until one day, it wasn't, they weren't right, and they'd said they could be friends, when all Sam really wanted to be more, and he had wanted to be less. "Don't you make this about anything other than what it is!"

"You're going off half-cocked about everything, taking jobs, ending jobs, waking up one morning making radical choices with no lead in, and you say things aren't connected?" Jake's voice, uncharacteristically rose, "It's you who won't listen! I just don't know if you can handle what's next."

"Oh, I'll show you what's next!" Sam all but screamed. He would see. She was going to take this ranch, grab life by the halter, and do everything people had always said she could never do on her own.

"You two need to can it before you shout the rafters down." Adam said, from the foot of the stairs. He had just come in, most likely. "I heard you both all the way in the yard."

"Who asked you?" Sam shouted, storming for the door. "You're not the boss of me!" She had no idea how she was going to do any of this, but at least she knew that, with the slam of the door, both men had gotten the message.

* * *

><p>"I am the boss. I. AM. THE. BOSS. Confident boss, competent leader. I am confident that I will be able to lead this ranch today. I will meet every challenge with confidence and grace, because I am the boss. The bossy boss." Sam said, under her breath. "No, no. Who even thinks like that? It's just Bill, Fred, and Paco. And the tractor from hell." Sam tightened her grip on the steering wheel. There didn't need to be any big speech, she just needed to do what needed to be done.<p>

She was on her way to have her daily meeting with the hands. Gram had thrown a fit when she'd said that she wanted to live at Deerpath, so she commuted, and would, she guessed, for the foreseeable future.

It had been a stoney, sullen, horrible moment when she had tried to correct Gram's assumptions. So Sam had moved back home, into her childhood bedroom, across the hall from Cody. At the time, she had been down to her last $150 until the money from her gig in Portland came up, with nothing left to do but suck it up, too tired to pick another fight with one of the few people in her corner.

She had started to contemplate selling her camera to keep her apartment when her lease was up.

Sam was not a fool. Once she was back from Portland, she had thrown everything she could fit into the cab of her truck, and called the thrift store in Elko, the nice one run by the United Cerebral Palsy Fund, to take the rest. There was nothing left for her in the apartment that had symbolized her independence.

Sam entered the shed, wondering how, even after weeks, that she could be so busy with things Dad had never really educated her about, how she could feel so very overwhelmed from the second she crawled out of bed to the very moment she fell back into it. Beyond the horses and the cattle and the crops, she could not believe the amount of mail she needed to handle, the amount of phone calls Martha received or the amount of times the tractor could seem to give out. She could drive a tractor, ride in the buddy seat, and even do the work in the cab, but pop the top, and she was clueless. She was all thumbs and confusion.

She had to walk a fine line, now, between admitting that she was clueless and acting like the leader she had to be in this situation. Sam approached the man working on the tractor, pulling on her work gloves that she took out of the pocket on her backside. "How's it looking today, Paco?"

He looked up. "Your Grandfather was always fiddling with her, Miss Sam, but I think I can get her going." He offered some advice, that Sam knew he only meant conversationally. "He always seemed to have just the right way of knowing...Ay, here we go. You go on and start her up, Miss."

Sam did as she was asked. She called out to him to let her know when to turn her on. When she did, it was clear that Paco had done something. With a sound Sam could not identify, the tractor was thunking along. Sam hopped down.

"There we go." Sam smiled, "Is there anything I need to know, Paco?" Sam asked an open-ended question. They would go over the work of the day as soon as she stopped in and checked with Martha. A few minutes to speak to the elderly lady meant everything in steeling her nerves.

Before he could reply, Sam's phone was ringing. With a look of apology, she stepped away and picked up the phone, "Deerpath Ranch, Sam speaking."

Though she was talking on her cell phone, the introduction was automatic. Sometimes, she messed up and said River Bend, but she was learning. At River Bend, she said her name first. Here, she said her name second. Now, she just needed to remember how to answer her own phone.

"I didn't call the house." Jake said. "Where are you?"

"The barn." Sam said, as she was walking there. The coast was clear, so she could finally speak her own mind. "Do you know how to fix that stupid tractor? I have no idea, and I got that guy to come by, and he sold me some bill of goods. He overcharged in his bid. I just need a someone that won't try to mansplain when I have a question or a problem."

"There's nothing wrong with it, Sam." Jake said, "She just need to be driven correctly. And you know that Bill rides her hard." Jake instructed, "Get your hand some drivers ed, and you won't have this problem. Grandfather enjoyed fixing the tractor, so he let things go for his own amusement."

How had Grandfather ever had time for things like amusement? Sam sighed, and went to look over the check list, to see if people had marked off the board. All looked well, with instals and times making sense. She flipped up the board to look at another schedule. Thank God she wasn't behind. She always felt two steps behind. "I don't have that luxury."

"Nope." Jake said, simply. They'd talked about this. She was, for all intents and purposes, running her own outfit. Deerpath was bigger than River Bend, had more facets, and she was busting her bottom to keep her own sanity. She was also trying to do her best to act like she was more than comfortable in the role, even with the support she did have from her brothers. Sam knew that Grandfather had staked the livelihood of their family, insofar as the profits, and the surety of the Ely name, upon her. Everyone helped, but it was she who went to bed at night wondering if she was doing okay, doing this right."You don't."

With that, they ended the call. Things were so odd, but normal. They still talked. Sam was still one of the boys. She and Jake and Darrell had gone shooting the other night, and Sam had nearly sobbed when Jake put a hand on her shoulder. She missed his touch, missed the quiet moments in the morning that they spent together.

But he hadn't wanted that. He had wanted nothing more than to end their relationship, whatever it was. Sam had understood the look on his face better than he himself even could. He wanted to end it. So she had done it for them. They loved each other, and to honor that love, they needed to be open about the tone of that love changing.

The smell of the feed hit her as she crossed into the wide feed room. Sam wished she knew why this bit of her cold was hanging on so. She shrugged off the thought, knowing that she was, for lack of a better word, lovelorn. Jake would always be her first, and they, in the years to come, would grow apart. Maybe that attraction would always be between them, but they would have to live life without doing anything about it. Sam could see them now, living here in Darton county, and passing each other in the grocery, passing each other at church. One day he would find a good woman, and she wouldn't be comfortable with their relationship, because she would never understand their dynamic, and it would end. Nothing would remain, nothing tangible, anyway, and that scared Sam.

Sam looked down at the checklist in her hand, checked the date, checked the date again, flipped the calendar forward, and back. She finally resorted to counting on her fingers. It had been eight weeks. Eight weeks. That was...that...was, well, that was not good, was it?

After a blinding moment of panic, wherein the checklist slipped from her grasp, and clattered to the floor, Sam remembered that she had had antibiotics a few weeks ago, long after their separation, because of that awful illness, that had gone away. It could just be that her hormone levels were off, or something. Sam had no clue, but she knew she had to find out.

* * *

><p>Evening came too slowly. Sam had calmed down, rationalizing her fear as a simple chemical imbalance. Finally, she just decided to put the whole thing out of her mind. It hurt so badly to consider what could be going on with her, because she just wasn't sure what to do. She couldn't really call any of her friends and ask if they had ever experienced this. They were all men. And Jen was so busy. She loved Jen, but Jen did not deserve to be stressed by Sam's problems. And Sam realized, really, that they hadn't talked in weeks, and she didn't want the lead-in to a conversation to be something like this.<p>

Sam came in from riding out with the cattle, hungry and bone tired. Bill had returned before her, and the hands were cooking up some meat on the grill. Sam sniffed the sleeve of her jacket as her stomach rolled. Please, Sam thought, please.

Ace was totally invested in her distraction as he pulled. Sam smelled leather and horse, then, and that calmed her. "Yes, I know you want your dinner, greedy."

Fred called out, as she dismounted and kissed Ace, "Want us to add one for you, Miss?"

Martha called out from the porch, as she came out of the house carrying foil wrapped potatoes and some other vegetables, carrots, Sam thought, on a large tray. Sam wondered if she was going to make fried potatoes with the leftovers. "You're just in time to eat, Sammy!"

Fred, young as he was, almost laughed. It was kind of funny. The hands called her Miss Sam, without fail. Sam didn't understand their need for formality, but she went along with it. Martha, as she always had, used a nickname that Sam didn't mind when it came from her. That she could be authority of anyone was, Fred was indeed correct, laughable. Sam knew he did not mean it that way, but she felt so unsure.

Sam led Ace towards the barn, "I'm just going to get him set up for the night." She paused, nearer to the wide table near the grill. It seemed they were celebrating Bill's divorce anniversary. Sam figured that his ex-wife probably celebrated it, too. There was a giant cookie from Darrell's bakery that read, "Sweet Freedom!" "But, uh, happy, uh, happy Bill."

"Thanks, Miss Sam. I'll save you a bit of cookie, if you want." The gruff older man was kind. Ace nuzzled her left side, and Sam knew that he was like a toddler demanding his mother's attention.

Sam nodded her thanks, "Have a nice night. I'm just going to get ready for that school group on Thursday, so I'll be late tomorrow." It was a lie, but she wasn't about to tell a bunch of her co-workers, her male co-workers, that she had to get checked out with Dr. Hull. With that, she turned to Ace and said, "Alright, Pushypants, you get your dinner, too."

Before she rounded the corner of the barn, Sam heard the crunch of foil, the sizzle of the grill, and a low, "Tough as leather, that one. Does she ever sleep, Martha Belle?"

Sam was intensely interested in their perceptions, so she tried to hear over her breathing. She couldn't stop moving or let on that she heard them, but she almost cried in relief when she heard Martha say, "She's a good girl. Mac knew what he was doing."

"He did. She's a good ol' boy if there ever was one." Fred said, "Reminds me of my brother, James. Always in the saddle..."

Sam could no longer hear them. She was too far away, and Ace needed her attentions. Sam colored. Yep, one of the guys, and most of the time, that was enough, if only she discounted her current concerns. If only she knew how to build a tractor, Sam thought, well, so much the better.

* * *

><p>Clearly, Sam realized, she was not a guy. She was staring at a medical picture of an internal organ that no one who was genetically male would ever possess. The ovaries on the wall were a strange yellow color that made her head spin.<p>

The door opened, "Sam?" Dr. Hull stood in the door. This was the woman who had delivered her, given her her first discussion about birth control, helped her to choose methods, given her condoms and a listening ear, all those years ago. They had a good relationship. "How are you?"

"I'm managing Deerpath for Grandfather, now." Sam said, "And I'm late."

Hull knew that Sam simply wasn't one for chit-chat. A cold sweat was breaking out across her back, underneath her Carhartt. Sam bit her lip.

Hull took this in stride. Sam didn't know how she could be so at ease. Sam was always ten seconds away from freaking out. "How late?"

Sam had thought through this a thousand and one times. "Uhm, the last time I had sex was almost eight weeks ago, and my last period was a week before that." Sam admitted, just so that Hull would have all of the information. It was easier to give facts than to explain that say that she was no longer involved with anyone. Hull was literally the only person that knew the details. "I honestly think something's wrong with my birth control. So if you could just check..."

There was a knock on the door, and someone was handing the doctor a lab slip. Sam had done what they'd asked, and known that she would know within moments, but she really hadn't known that knowing was going to feel like this.

Hull looked over at her and smiled, "Sam, it failed. That's what's wrong. You're pregnant."

In a sudden flash of warmth, she was utterly lost. It shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't be like this. No, no, no. This wasn't...this wasn't...she hadn't planned this. What was she going to do?

Hull looked at her horrified expression with knowing eyes as she flipped open the folder, "Okay. Sam. I need you to breathe. You have lots of options here, but you are pregnant. We'll need to do some checks, but it seems to me that you and Jake..."

Sam cut her off. "Just me. We're..." Sam realized that she was one moment away from spilling her guts to her OB/GYN. So what if the woman had taught her sex-ed class, had been a member of her church for decades? She couldn't cross that boundary. "Not...anymore, just not..."

Dr. Hull was more sympathetic than most professionals would be, Sam thought, as she thought she knew of their relationship, knew them both personally. Her voice was soft and caring, "You're due in July, provided you want to continue the pregnancy." Dr. Hull said, "Sam, are you alright?"

She couldn't swallow. She felt like her throat was closing. How could this be happening? They were fastidiously careful. They were the poster people for safe sex. She could not think. How could this be happening? Not how. She knew how, knew the exact moment, the exact situation, that had gotten her in this boat. It was the why that confused her. Things happened for a reason. But what was the reason here?

Sam knew that she had options. The doctor was doing her professional duty in telling her that she had options. Sam knew that she should consider them, more fully. Sam knew she wouldn't do it. Dr. Hull would always completely unbiased, completely understanding, completely professional. As such, sitting here, in this tiny room, it was one of the most freeing experiences of Sam's life, to know that in this room, she was making a choice for herself, and that was no guilt, no shame, or not even any joy in the choice she was making.

There was just truth, and self-honesty, and complete acceptance. One choice was as acceptable as any other. She made a choice because she wanted to make it, without value attached to anything, without anything coloring her perceptions. beyond that of what she knew to be right for her. Maybe she would change her mind, soon, but for now, she knew her heart, and her mind.

Against reason, she knew what was right for her. She wanted this baby. This was her baby. She wanted it, and the thought of not having it, was, in the space of a single second, unfathomable. This tiny cellular being, it was something she had never known she wanted, but, wow, did she. It didn't make sense, but it was right.

She nodded. "Fine. Uh, I just wasn't expecting to be expecting." She breathed. Breathed again. This would be okay. Her heart was pounding, her pulse was racing, and she couldn't suck in enough air. She desperately, Sam realized, wanted this baby, and it didn't matter why, and it didn't matter how.

Dr. Hull was scribbling on her prescription pad. She stopped, and looked up, carefully to the point, "I'm sure you need time, Sam. I'm here if you need me. And there's a fantastic counselor in Elko, if you want to talk to someone who didn't give you the sex talk at fifteen, okay?"

"No. I'm keeping this baby, Hull." Sam said, "It's just..." She looked at the empty chair next to her. There seemed something so wrong with this moment. She could not give her child the life she had always known a child deserved. "It deserves more. And I...what am I going to do? What do I do?"

Hull extended her one slip. Sam took it, and then the next one, "One in the morning, and one at night. If your nausea kicks in, let me know. Try to eat reasonably, and stretch if you're going to be in and out of the saddle a lot. No smoking, no drinking, no hot baths." Hull kept talking, and Sam just glazed over as she asked questions and Hull made notes.

How was she going to do this? Sam felt so very overwhelmed. She tried to keep up Hull. Finally, she was getting ready to go, having taken all of the measurements and collected whatever data she needed. The doctor gave her some personal advice, advice she would likely never have given anyone else. "And Sammy, talk to Jake. You know that he loves you beyond measure. He'll do right by this, however you two define that."

Sam couldn't begin to tell her how wrong she was, because she wasn't going to put this on Jake's plate. She had only known about that facet of their relationship because she was Dr. Hull, and Dr. Hull knew all. She didn't understand that they weren't in a relationship, like that, at least. Jake had been a full time best friend, a part time lover. And now, somehow, Sam was going to have to figure out if part-time lover somehow translated into full time father.

* * *

><p>Back at Deerpath, Sam sat in her office, looked at the pamphlets Dr. Hull's nurse had given her, and cried. Her father was going to kill her, and she had nothing to offer this child. She had her education, sure, but she could not give her baby the kind of family Cody had, and her baby deserved that, too. Was she being selfish, in wanting this baby? She didn't have...<p>

She and Jake were friends who couldn't keep their hands off of each other, the best of friends. She was one of the guys. A buddy. A chill, lifelong, friend, who was just kind of, there, there for the camping and the drives and the football and the wing nights and the mudding, who also gave great insight into the reason why their relationships were often so screwed up. But that was the very end of it, and their sexual relationship was over. Nowhere in there was any discussion of commitment, of babies and pot roasts. They came together when things turned that way, though they were always friends. He deserved the right to forge his own path.

She was going to be the best mother she knew how to be. She did not intend to deny Jake access, or even infringe upon his rights, but she was not going to rush at him and hold him responsible to help her out. He could be a parent if he chose to, just like she kept this baby out of choice. Her child was not going to be some obligation he didn't embrace with joy. "Alright, baby." Sam said, drying her tears, "That's over, and it's you and me, okay? I can't teach you about tractors now, but I can learn, and I promise...I promise that everyone around you is going to love you."

Sam worked for a few hours, filling out invoices. She felt so drained. Her phone buzzed. "Hello?" Sam quickly shoved the prenatal information under her mousepad.

"It's wing night, loser!" Quinn said, "You coming?" He was obviously just finishing up his own work. Sam did not feel like watching football, did not feel like talking about cattle and pretending to be at ease in the middle of her circle of friends and family.

"No, I've got work." Sam glanced at the calendar on the wall. "Mrs. Braverman's second grade..." Sam began, trying to tell him about the class visit. She clicked through her books, and made a mental note to check in with Luke or Dad about some questions she had.

A second later, in a shocked second of remembering, Sam knew that such questions were only possible provided they spoke to her once they knew about Baby. It occurred to her that, in the space of an afternoon, Baby had become a being in her world. The addition was jarring, and the possible implications were astounding.

"Aw, come on, Samwhich." Quinn teased, "Just stop by. I haven't seen you in two days, and..."

Sam knew that he was serious. "Okay, Quinn. Okay. But I can't promise I'll be good company."

"You're a pal, Sammy." Quinn said, "Oh, and Mom wants to know if you're coming on Sunday. She said you said you might be going down to Reno to see Jen."

"I don't know yet." Sam said, fiddling with her computer. She had texted Jen, and Jen wanted her to come down to UNR and sit in her apartment, and eat Thai food and tell her what was up. "Look, if you want me there, you have to let me go."

* * *

><p>After another hour or so of work, Sam gathered her stuff and tossed the folder onto the passenger seat of her truck. Quinn, of course, beat her to the small hole in the wall next to the post office. Everybody knew everybody there. It was just a place to go, not that anyone ever really got drunk or had wild times. They were just in the middle of the desert with no one to talk to, and needed a place to meet outside of church.<p>

If you were lonely after Clara's closed, you went to Patty's, and she fixed you up, somehow, sometimes with beer, sometimes with TV and the radio, and sometimes with a bowl of soup homemade from her sister's restaurant, accompanied by a listening ear.

Sam crossed the threshold and hung up her jacket, under the low hum of the TV. She hated football. Nobody liked her when she said it was homoerotic and a rather dumb sport, all told, though the two things weren't really connected. They were just observations.

Darrell called out, "Sam!" like she didn't see them sitting at the same table. "Look who crawled in off the range!"

"Harty-har-har." Sam said, "Crops don't grow themselves, and cows don't get to market without someone to look after them. Regretting not taking the job?" Sam began, taking a swig of the soda on the table before her. Quickly, she spit it back in the glass. Baby couldn't have soda, according to the list in the truck. "Hey, Patty, can I get, uh, a water? Or maybe some juice?"

The owner in question called out in affirmation. Darrell just frowned, "No diet soda with two shots of root beer?"

She had been drinking that same soda that way since college, in an effort to get the taste of root beer without the calories of a full calorie soda. It was a quirk, but she never drank her soda any other way, anymore.

"You're welcome to it, Sammy." Quinn added, "Has the world ended?" He sighed, "And after all the trouble I went to to order you that drink."

"Yeah..." Sam snorted, ready to tease him again, when the door pushed open again. Seeing Jake sent a bolt of awareness down her spine.

She trailed off, feeling so awkward and unsure. How was it possible, that she felt so very strange in front of him, now? She felt like she was seeing him for the first time as he hung up a jacket she'd bought him with a 60% off discount code and free shipping, and crossed the bar to order the same thing he always did. Sam realized that it wasn't the expression on his face or the jacket or anything else that made this moment so odd.

It was the water glass in his hand. Sam went horribly still, and turned white. He didn't know about Baby. And she...she was going to have to tell him, with words. It was only right that he knew first. Even she didn't have to Google it to know that he needed to know before anyone else.

But she couldn't tell him now, and it was impossible to think of anything else in this moment. Her mind was a swirling mess. She couldn't take that water, because she wasn't sure if he...was okay with the significance of it. The football ref made some call, and they were going on about the foul. Darrell and Quinn were staring at her, like they had never seen her before, as she stared at Jake.

This wasn't her life anymore. This was just something she was going to lose, when push came to shove, and she would rather her memories stay as they were. There would be no laughter tonight, and feeling alone in jovial company seemed a hollow replacement for the understanding she needed but would never gain.

Sam pushed to her feet, the chair scraping the wooden floors. Some guys who had been a few years ahead of her in high school looked over, but Sam didn't care. She couldn't take that water. She brushed past Jake, almost knocking the water and the beer out of his hands, calling out, "I forgot to check the tractor!"

She grabbed her coat, before anyone could really stop her. They could tease and hoot and and call after her as they liked, if only they left her alone. This was a giant mess.

* * *

><p>Sam slept fitfully. When she went to do morning feedings, there was a man standing still in the middle of the feed room, one boot crossed over the other as he leaned elegantly against the wall. "We need to talk."<p>

"I've nothing to say, Quinn." Sam replied. This wasn't the man she needed to speak to, but she had ignored Jake's texts. She knew it was childish, but no part of her wanted to reply, "Hey, yeah, I left because I'm having your baby. Text me back?"

"You ruined wing night!" Quinn said and Sam realized that he was deadly serious. There was a tensity to his fake ease that sent warning bells to peeling in her mind. "There was no one to eat the celery, and those honey barbecue wings went to waste!"

"What do you want, my share of the money?" Sam picked up a bucket, to hide her regret, and went about mixing feeds. Better he think that he was way off base, and that she had better things to do.

Sam turned around, and set the bucket on the table to mix the feed. Quinn stepped around to the other side of the table, facing her, as she stopped mixing feed to look up at him. There was such pain on his face.

"No, I took that out of your truck." He pulled the folder, which read _Your Pregnancy Binder, _out from under his jacket, "I saw this there, too."

"Quinn..." Sam said, her heart pounding. "You can't honestly think..." He couldn't think what? There was nothing to think but the truth.

"I do think, and you know what else I think?" Quinn said, his voice thick and tight with something that could only be called hurt, "I think you and Jake did a pretty shitty thing, Sam, in not telling us about the baby..."

"Jake has nothing to do with my baby." Sam said, quickly, dropping the measuring cup back into the bin. "So don't you..."

"Nothing to do with his child?" Quinn said, his face tight. "Nothing to do with the fact that..." He paused, "Oh, hell _no_. _Hell_ no."

"Quinn." Sam said, "Calm down. Now." Sam almost felt her knees shaking, but she was not going to back down. "You..."

"I what...?" Quinn said, shifting. "You don't intend to stand here and lie to my face, do you, about some other guy, because I'm not stupid."

"We're not together anymore, not that we ever really were." Sam confessed, knowing that Quinn had known about everything, not that they had ever really talked about it. "We had a talk, and we agreed that ending things was the most sensible thing to do." Sam added, "It's best for the baby, Quinn. I can't think about myself anymore, and, and Baby needs parents that can work together. I'm confident that we can do that, given time and space."

"Time? And Space?" Quinn repeated, as though she was not speaking clearly. "Time and space?"

"Yes." Sam repeated herself. "We both have our own paths to follow. I'm not out to trap him, or make him stand accountable for this, because this baby, it isn't a burden or anything. It's something good, and I won't let it be said that I..."

"Trap him." Quinn broke in, slowly, understanding dawning in his widening eyes. "Right."

Sam bit her lip, tears welling as her brother understood what she was saying. She cared deeply for Jake, loved him, and knew that he deserved his own chance to make a choice. Quinn, Sam also realized, had one to make too.

He came around the table, and wrapped her in a huge hug. Sam willed herself not to cry as he said, "It's going to be great, Sam. Think of how happy Mom'll be to have a grandkid she'll see more than twice a year, if Kitt ever even does get to work. And you know I'm always beside you. Always."

His hug was as fraternal as it had ever been, not that they were very huggy people. Sam lingered for a second longer than she expected she might, and went about her day, knowing that Quinn would never tell.

* * *

><p>He went down hard, falling into the dirt as Quinn threw him down unexpectedly. It was hard, and worse yet, came from his own brother. Jake dodged as Quinn's fist swung, "What the hell, man?"<p>

Jake went to block him. Quinn had been his sparring partner all his life, but Jake was a cop. He wasn't a sloppy fighter, but Quinn was putting him through his paces. The world dropped out from under Jake when Quinn snapped, along with the crunch of his foot, "If you think you're going to hurt her, fill her head with that shit, you've got another thing coming, do you hear me?" They were rolling around in the dirt, now, muscles straining and blood pooling as they gave as good as they got.

Jake used his foot to get the upper hand, and push out, "Whatever's going on with Sam is her problem. You know she can handle..." She could handle that tractor fine. The ranch was in the best hands possible. Jake thought that Quinn was regretting letting Sam take the helm, but it was too late. Sam might have suddenly declared a moratorium on their sex lives, but it didn't mean he didn't love her, didn't know that she was going to be the best damn rancher the world had ever seen.

Jake broke off as Quinn tried to break his face, driving his hand with such force up towards his nose that Jake barely escaped a broken nose. Their muscles strained as they met their match, Quinn with his anger and his force, and Jake with his skill and steely nerves.

He landed a solid punch in Quinn's gut, in a tangle of limbs. They were fighting, and Jake had no idea why, but if Quinn thought he had any right to be cryptic about Sam, to keep things he thought he knew to himself, he had another thing coming. The idea that Jake had hurt her, when she had been the one to cryptically ask him for space, was unfathomable.

Quinn yanked on his hair. It was a low blow. They had always had rules when they fought. Sam had insisted on the no hair rule as kids, because she always wore her hair long, and being as rough and tumble as she was didn't mean that she couldn't care about her hair. Jake had learned years later that her scalp was really sensitive, made more so after the accident, and that playing with her hair was something she sometimes enjoyed in the afterglow.

It seemed that the rules had gone out the window. "I hope you enjoy your time and your space, you stupid fucker..." Quinn almost landed a punch, almost bit him, with a snarl. What was this? Jake thought that he was frustrated, but his brother was enraged, "...because your path just got a big, hulking, burden in the form of my fist." Quinn held him down with every bit of his might.

Jake had never seen such anger, such loathing, on his brother's face. He was bewildered, bewildered and angry.

"You're going to do the right thing, or you're going to deal with me dogging you and dragging your ass down until you do, you hear me?" Jake couldn't escape the punch that hit him, not if he wanted to keep some semblance of control and dominance over Quinn.

Jake used the second to try and twist out and flip them both over. he said, "Quinn!" Jake all but barked, using every inch of his training to force a command into the word. "Stop!"

Quinn didn't stop, not where it counted most. He lowered his fists, and spat. He hauled Jake to his feet, and looked at him. Jake shoved at him, shoved him hard. "She'd be a fool to marry you." Blood dripped from Quinn's mouth. Jake was breathing heavily and sweating.

Had Sam honestly told Quinn about all the times he'd all but begged her to marry him? Had that been what had freaked her out that morning? He'd not asked in a while, because she always snapped at him, and sometimes, a guy needed to gather his nerves and think before he asked again. He had never told her that, the last time they'd been together, that he'd been called into work, and he had regretted not being able to ask her properly, with a ring and everything.

But then...then...she had...asked for time. She had all but cried, and asked for space. He was so confused by the whole thing that he had been so hurt, and had never asked her why. He had said okay, agreed, would have agreed to anything, knowing that she looked so sad.

Quinn spoke like the wrath of God was behind him. "But to tell her that shit, and walk away, knowing she's having your baby because it didn't fit into whatever you two called your relationship is the biggest crock of bullshit I have ever heard! I am not going to let you knock up my sister and walk away like she's nothing but a drunken one night stand!" Quinn was screaming, then, yelling, like Jake had never heard before. "Or is it that you want your kid calling somebody else Daddy, so you can do as you please with your precious time and space, because..."

Images flashed through Jake's mind as the air left his lungs, and he acted. Within a second, Quinn was against the metal of his truck, his body hitting it harder than was needed, his arm twisted forcefully around his back, his face planted to the side of his truck cab. "I don't know who you're talking to, Quinn, but..."

As he processed the words, Jake felt something shift inside of him. That morning in the coffee shop, she had looked worn, and tired, and teary. Had she realized...about the baby, the baby, God, the baby, and ended it because she wanted time and space or because she thought he did?

Jake tried to breathe. His grip went slack as his palms slicked over. "...but..." Jake stepped away from his brother, and sank down into the dirt, against the truck, legs splayed out in front of him, as he cleaned up the blood dripping into his eye from a cut above his eyebrow. "What's this about a drunken one-night stand? Get your facts, fuckface..." Jake almost laughed, as he was quoting Sam, "It's been eight years, and just because we've hit a rough patch, doesn't mean we ended our relationship. _Christ_." Jake said, "What did you think we are, some kind of friends with benefits?"

* * *

><p>Sam's saddle bags were full as she was five miles out, riding fence. She needed the time to think. It wasn't right that Quinn knew first, but this wasn't something that could be said over the phone or on a lunch break. But if they couldn't make to discuss her pregnancy, how were they going to actually do any co-parenting?<p>

Sam didn't know. The cows, Sam realized, were about the only company she could handle. She unzipped her jacket, and untucked her hoodie. Everything looked fine so far, but she had miles to go, yet, and she still had to check that stock tank that Bill said he fixed yesterday. She didn't know if it need replacing, but she wasn't going to okay that expenditure without some kind of firsthand observation.

Sam ticked up her iPod a bit. She just needed to think. She couldn't think. What was her life? Maybe she should move. She could think, maybe, if the whole world around her was different, and not just in little, significant spaces. She could come back here for...every other weekend, every other summer, every other school year? Nope.

This being over sucked, and not because of Baby. How had eight years of intimacy and twenty four years of friendship come down to who got to see their kid when? How had a world that had seemed so easily navigated become a land mine of meaning and nuance?

This had never been about the sex, had it? But what about that look on his face? He didn't want to be with her, so she had ended it, but what had she ended? The whole sex thing, and their friendship, well, it was more enmeshed that she realized. When did Jake the friend begin, and Jake the lover end? There had been, Sam realized, very little difference, and she missed that whole person with something that ached inside of her.

Sam heard hoofbeats, and steeled her spine, pulled the earbuds out of her ears. She was always being warned about not using the iPod. It was dangerous and bad form, meant only for rings, if that. Jake came into view, and Sam watched him move as one with Witch across the range. There was such poetry in the way they moved tougher, a dance that was at once fluidly graceful and practically staccato. Sam just watched him as he spotted her and Ace, who was not at all pleased about her being transfixed over some man who never carried enough treats to suit him.

Jake just looked at her, air puffing from his lungs. He was bruised, battered, and looked like utter mincemeat. "Quinn blabbed, didn't he?"

Jake cracked a smile, "Yeah, he and his right hook." He paused, swallowed like he wanted to grimace, "Was this ever going to come up between us, or what?"

"I've had about a day, Jake." Sam said, but then tried to at least be a bit nicer. He was processing. "I'm sorry that Quinn decided to take his frustration out on you. I knew he'd be disappointed, but I never thought that he would actually go off on you. He was nice to me."

"Did you tell him we were over? Did you tell him that I asked you for space, asked you for time, because those weren't my words, Sam. They were yours. You asked for those things." Jake said.

She knew what she had said. She didn't need him to rehash every second of that stilted and awful conversation. She had put the cards on the table for him, because she knew that he liked his patterns, and how hard it was for him to break one.

Jake wasn't done, though, as Witch moved along with Ace. "If you don't want to have sex, fine, whatever, you don't owe anybody an explanation, but I still can't figure out what happened. One day, you were fine, we were fine, and the next, I find my toothbrush in a box, and you're giving me some shit about paths and peace and choices. I gave you the things you asked for, without asking you why, and I need to know."

"You smiled at me." Sam looked out between Ace's ears. "You smiled, that morning, and then, when you didn't think I was looking, you looked so sad. So regretful, Jake. I'm not doing that to you, not for anything, and if that means..." Sam shrugged, the sky blurring in front of her, "You can see Baby whenever you want. We can co-parent, if that's what you want, or we can work out something..."

"Sam." Jake said, stealing her attention, "I had a look on my face, so you went and...brushed me off in a coffee shop, because I _smiled_?"

He didn't get it. It wasn't that he had smiled. It was what had happened after, it was the expression of something that could only be called sadness on his face. It had been clear as a bell to her, clear as day, that he hadn't wanted this anymore. She had asked for time and space, hoping that she would have the courage to let go fully. "Because of how you looked, Jake."

"Did it ever occur to you, Sam, that after nearly a decade, it sucks to not have a bed to call your own, to not to be able to complain about you behind your back like Darrell can with Ally, because of a pattern we carved out at 19?" Jake asked, "I'm not 19, anymore, and neither are you, and sometimes, yeah, it makes me sad that we don't have what we should have by now."

Sam swallowed, "What?" Her brain felt like it was shorting out.

"I've asked you to marry me four times in the last year." Jake reminded her. He had, in fact, asked her six times, but the fact that he didn't even have an accurate count on what he was saying proved her point.

"A proposal doesn't count if you're naked, or if any of your body parts are or have been in contact with another person's in the last three hours." Sam said, wondering why this was germane to the conversation at all. She had laughed off those silly, teasing, remarks, not letting him know how much that teasing hurt her.

"Fine, then." Jake said, "Marry me." Witch picked up pace alongside Ace. He better not head her off.

Sam stopped, because she knew that he was going to do it. "No." Sam shook her head, "I'm not marrying you because of Baby." She was set on that point. Ace sidestepped, "It's not fair to any of us."

"I'm not asking you because of the baby, Sam." Jake said, matching her movement for movement. "I'm asking you because I want to be married. It's just that I want to wake up with you, and eat with you, and step on the razor you leave in the shower, and I'd like to do things without having to wait until my 48 off to see you." Jake said, "And since the only time I ever really see you is on my 48 off, and that usually means getting naked, yes, that's when I've asked you. I didn't know you had some rule. Who has a rule like that, and why wasn't it explained to me?"

"Jake." Sam's face was bloodless. How dare he tease her? How dare he ask her, like the rest of their friends, to call on her femaleness when he wanted information. She was so tired of playing that role, sometimes. "Every woman knows that there are rules to how a proposal is supposed to be issued. She might have her own variations on them, but every woman's got rules of some kind, even if that rule is no rules."

He must have heard something in her voice, because Witch started moving, and Ace, knowing his buddy all to well, followed along as she watched the cattle and the fence lines. After a time, he spoke, "You told Quinn that you weren't asking me to choose."

"I did." Sam wanted him to understand that he didn't have to see her and Baby as a package deal. He did not to have to want her to want to know his child.

"That's good, because I'm not doing it. I want everything you want to give me, Sam." Jake said, "I want more out of life, and I'm sorry I didn't say that years ago. I'm so tired of just being one of the guys in your life."

After his words hit home, she laughed. She laughed until he looked at her like she was insane, like he should get her professional help. When that moment came, that concern cresting over his face, her laughter turned to tears.

**So, this is a one-shot of one of my biggest headcannons. I've always kind of viewed Sam as, for a lack of a better term, one of the 'guys' to her circle of friends and her family. I've also always seen her as a rancher, at the end of it all. I doubt that I will write any more, as this is meant to stand alone. I do regret not wiggling in a scene with Sam telling Wyatt, but I really honestly believed that Jake needed to know. **

**However, you will note nods to the Darlin' Series (Darrell is pastry chef) and A Better Normal (Dr. Hull makes an appearance), as well as Witchy Woman (Jake becomes a cop in Darton County). However, none of this story is actually connected to those universes. I nearly called this story Good Ol' Boy (I Remember You) but I couldn't go that far. **


End file.
